Commentary on Micah 3:5-12

The biblical prophets were not the only prophets in the ancient world. Many people prophesied in ancient Israel and Judah, as well as in neighboring nations. People had to discern who was a true prophet and who was a false prophet. Today, we have the words of the prophet Micah preserved in the Bible because his followers preserved them and passed them on to future generations. The best way to tell whether someone is a true prophet, of course, is in hindsight, when their prophecies turn out to have been true or not.

In Micah 3, the prophet is prophesying against false prophets who have been giving false hope to the people of Judah by telling them what they want to hear instead of the harsh reality of the historical moment. Prophets such as these would have been rewarded in the short term with wealth and popularity, whereas the biblical text shares examples of prophets bringing bad news and being rejected. 

In Jeremiah 38, the military leadership considers Jeremiah’s prophecies bad for morale, so they throw him in a muddy pit to starve to death! The false prophets Micah describes have been taking bribes. Under the threat of warfare that surrounds the small nation of Judah, they prophesy positive outcomes for those who bribe them and negative outcomes for those who don’t. In exchange, they themselves are well fed for now, but they have been affirming the leaders in dangerous choices and unjust actions that will leave God’s people unfed and unprotected.

This text comes from the eighth century BCE, when Assyrian domination threatened the entire Afro-Asiatic world (see Wil Gafney for more on this term). Before this ancient superpower’s attack, Israel and Judah were divided and had become two nations. Israel, in the north, had seceded from Judah, in the south, after the death of Solomon. Israel was relatively successful for a small nation-state and attempted to resist the Assyrian army, only to be destroyed. Some refugees had managed to flee to Judah. 

Micah speaks to a time when the Judean leadership faced the decision of whether to fight back or submit to the Assyrian Empire. His words regarding false prophets reflect on the dangers of bribery and offering false optimism instead of hard truths.

It is not only the prophets who have been taking bribes. Micah’s tough-love prophecy for the Jerusalem elites includes the rulers’ judgments, the priests’ teaching, and prophets’ misconstruing of God’s message. These corrupt leaders had been serving those who could afford to pay them rather than those in need. 

Micah is Judean, but he speaks to the capital city of Jerusalem as an outsider. The first verse of the book introduces him as Micah of Moresheth, a rural town southwest of the city. The people of Moresheth and most of Judah would have been subsistence farmers living in extended families where everyone from the age of three worked all day every day just to survive. They were not in a walled city like Jerusalem, making them all the more exposed to Assyrian attacks. Micah lived among those who could not afford to bribe anyone to act in their interest, but they would be the first to suffer the consequences of the decisions their leaders made because of those bribes. 

The Jerusalem elites have been using their position to enrich themselves rather than to act in the best interest of the people they serve. This goes from small-scale judgments made in favor of the one who pays the ruler rather than the one who is in the right, to major policy decisions in a time of war. They rest on theologies of Judah, Jerusalem, and the Davidic monarchy as God’s chosen nation, city, and king, respectively, and therefore, God will protect them militarily. 

They do not want to hear Micah remind them that these theologies rest not just on worshiping God alone, in the right way, in the Jerusalem temple, but also on acting as the agents of God’s justice (Psalm 72). Being a chosen city, leader, people, or nation does not exempt them from acting justly. Rather, it holds them to a higher standard. By taking bribes, they have failed to behave as the chosen leaders of God’s holy city are required to act so as to retain God’s blessing, but they do not want to hear it. 

The consequences Micah foresees are poetically fitting. The prophets who take bribes will no longer receive divine messages, and the city that ignores the needs of the rural people will be flattened like a plowed field. Both will become as helpless as those they refused to help, preferring their own self-interest. Both consequences will also serve the people better than the corrupt leadership has done. Without false prophets, God’s message of justice will be apparent, and what was a city of elites will provide additional arable land. 

Micah 3:5–12 follows a chapter in which the people to whom Micah is prophesying tell him, “Do not preach … one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us!” (2:6). He does it anyway. I imagine every preacher who reads this commentary has had at least one similar interaction with a congregant, if not an entire committee. Sometimes people do not want to hear what we have to say. 

Micah and the unnamed prophets of Jerusalem had the option to take a bribe to preach something comfortable for the powerful or to preach God’s justice to God’s people. It can be difficult to hold leaders and communities accountable. This text suggests that you are in good company.